Inheritance of Loss explores how contemporary generations come to terms with losses inflicted by imperialism, colonialism, and war that happened decades ago, and how descendants of perpetrators and ...
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Inheritance of Loss explores how contemporary generations come to terms with losses inflicted by imperialism, colonialism, and war that happened decades ago, and how descendants of perpetrators and victims establish new relations in today’s globalized economy. Approaching these questions through the lens of inheritance, rather than memory, it focuses on Northeast China, the former site of the Japanese puppet state Manchukuo. As China transitions to a market-oriented society, this region is restoring long-neglected colonial-era structures to boost tourism while inviting former colonial industries to invest, all while inadvertently unearthing chemical weapons abandoned by the Imperial Japanese Army at the end of World War II. This book explores how long neglected colonial remnants are transformed into newly minted capital through the rhetoric of “inheritance.” It chronicles sites of colonial inheritance––tourist destinations, corporate zones, and mustard gas exposure sites––to illustrate entangled attempts by ordinary Chinese and Japanese to reckon with their shared yet contested pasts. It identifies the political economy of redemption as a new mode of generational transmission of the past that makes visible the entangled processes of “after empire,” which points to the often invisible, displaced, or seemingly separate postcolonial and postimperial processes that shape the afterlife of losses and their redemptions, to envisioning present and future relations to what remains, and to renewed desires for going after empire. Inheritance of Loss shows how structures of violence and injustice after the demise of the Japanese Empire compound the losses that later generations must account for, and inevitably inherit.Less

Inheritance of Loss : China, Japan, and the Political Economy of Redemption After Empire

Yukiko Koga

Published in print: 2016-12-02

Inheritance of Loss explores how contemporary generations come to terms with losses inflicted by imperialism, colonialism, and war that happened decades ago, and how descendants of perpetrators and victims establish new relations in today’s globalized economy. Approaching these questions through the lens of inheritance, rather than memory, it focuses on Northeast China, the former site of the Japanese puppet state Manchukuo. As China transitions to a market-oriented society, this region is restoring long-neglected colonial-era structures to boost tourism while inviting former colonial industries to invest, all while inadvertently unearthing chemical weapons abandoned by the Imperial Japanese Army at the end of World War II. This book explores how long neglected colonial remnants are transformed into newly minted capital through the rhetoric of “inheritance.” It chronicles sites of colonial inheritance––tourist destinations, corporate zones, and mustard gas exposure sites––to illustrate entangled attempts by ordinary Chinese and Japanese to reckon with their shared yet contested pasts. It identifies the political economy of redemption as a new mode of generational transmission of the past that makes visible the entangled processes of “after empire,” which points to the often invisible, displaced, or seemingly separate postcolonial and postimperial processes that shape the afterlife of losses and their redemptions, to envisioning present and future relations to what remains, and to renewed desires for going after empire. Inheritance of Loss shows how structures of violence and injustice after the demise of the Japanese Empire compound the losses that later generations must account for, and inevitably inherit.

When state socialism collapsed in Mongolia and the chaos of neoliberal “shock therapy” took hold, like most other herders throughout the country, the ethnic nomadic Buryats were left without means of ...
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When state socialism collapsed in Mongolia and the chaos of neoliberal “shock therapy” took hold, like most other herders throughout the country, the ethnic nomadic Buryats were left without means of livelihood on the edge of an impoverished state. Attributing their misfortunes to their ancestral origin spirits, who were suppressed during socialism but now returned to take revenge for forgetting, the Buryats sponsor shamanic rituals in hope of taming these spirits. What results is a gradually unfolding and constantly shifting history of their tragic past. This history is incomplete and unsettling as well as unsettled; acknowledging the spirits seems to allow more to erupt and provoke. Both shamans and clients seek knowledge of how to placate these spirits, much of which was lost to the socialist state’s disruption of the transmission of shamanic practice. As clients search for the most reliable shamans, shamans hustle for recognition through flamboyant rituals of spirit possession. Together they perpetuate the very practices that they aim to tame. Despite the ambiguity of shamanic powers and reality of spirits, the narratives of origin spirits assume life of their own as shamans pitch them simultaneously as communal histories and individual memories. Yet many spirits remain unknown -- with identities and voice lost -- due to centuries of violence. More, revealing the link between gender and memory, female ancestors—absent from genealogical record and forgotten --are prone to turn avaricious and haunt their descendents. Tragic Spirits documents this shamanic proliferation and its context, economics, and gendered politics.Less

Manduhai Buyandelger

Published in print: 2013-11-01

When state socialism collapsed in Mongolia and the chaos of neoliberal “shock therapy” took hold, like most other herders throughout the country, the ethnic nomadic Buryats were left without means of livelihood on the edge of an impoverished state. Attributing their misfortunes to their ancestral origin spirits, who were suppressed during socialism but now returned to take revenge for forgetting, the Buryats sponsor shamanic rituals in hope of taming these spirits. What results is a gradually unfolding and constantly shifting history of their tragic past. This history is incomplete and unsettling as well as unsettled; acknowledging the spirits seems to allow more to erupt and provoke. Both shamans and clients seek knowledge of how to placate these spirits, much of which was lost to the socialist state’s disruption of the transmission of shamanic practice. As clients search for the most reliable shamans, shamans hustle for recognition through flamboyant rituals of spirit possession. Together they perpetuate the very practices that they aim to tame. Despite the ambiguity of shamanic powers and reality of spirits, the narratives of origin spirits assume life of their own as shamans pitch them simultaneously as communal histories and individual memories. Yet many spirits remain unknown -- with identities and voice lost -- due to centuries of violence. More, revealing the link between gender and memory, female ancestors—absent from genealogical record and forgotten --are prone to turn avaricious and haunt their descendents. Tragic Spirits documents this shamanic proliferation and its context, economics, and gendered politics.

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